1. Field
A touch screen device and operating method thereof are disclosed herein.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, menu information is provided for all digital equipment, such as MP3 players, portable multimedia players (PMP), personal digital assistants (PDA), or notebook computers according to their functions or characteristics such that a user can more easily utilize the digital equipment. Since a variety of services and functions are being provided to the individual equipment, the menu information is considered indispensable information. Such menu information is generally structured to include a main menu for providing functions by categories and submenus provided to respective menu items of the main menu. In such a case, detailed menus are displayed and desired functions are executed according to menu selection. Further, a menu setting function, such as a function for adding frequently used functions to Favorites, is provided.
However, when a user wants to select a desired function using such menu information, he/she selects a desired main menu from the menu information through key operations and selects a sub-menu included in the main menu. By way of example, a method of using menus in a portable information terminal which provides a variety of multimedia information, such as music, games, photographs, or moving images will be described. A portable information terminal displays a menu on an initial screen to select a medium when electric power is first applied thereto. Then, if a user selects any one of the menus, the user can proceed to the next sub-menus. The user confirms the sub-menus and selects a desired menu to execute a desired function. At this time, if the user utilizes another function, he/she must return to the initial menu screen and then select another menu on the initial menu screen. That is, if the user sets the audio quality or tone in a music playback mode while playing back MP3 files in the music playback mode, he/she must change menus from the current music playback mode to an upper menu and select again a setting mode from the initial menu mode. In other words, the user moves from a current menu to the initial menu and then selects a desired function through a plurality of key operations.
In a conventional method of displaying menus, a process of moving between menus is complicated. Further, since the digital equipment with complicated functions has a variety of menus in proportion to the provided functions, a process of moving between menus is much more complicated and a user has difficulty operating the menus. Since the menus are provided in the form of a general tree structure, it is inconvenient as a user must pass through a plurality of operations to select a specific function.